Google's International Filter Loosened Up?

A WebmasterWorld thread has several webmasters and SEOs claiming a huge increase in traffic to their country specific web sites. The first example given was a site that primarily targets Australia and has done well in Google Australia is now receiving a ton of traffic from other Google properties.

He said he has seen an uptick in traffic referrers:

US up by 120%

UK by 90%

India by 380%

Brazil by 360%

WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster, confirmed these findings with his own web site properties. Tedster said, "I'm seeing this effect too. Something has definitely shifted in the way Google lists out-of-country websites in the search results on country versions of Google."

Some are saying this is specific to Google Image Search, while others have not yet specified.